ShareThisIf you take Agent 007 and add 110 gags, you get Agent 117 -- complete with elements of James Bond and Inspector Clouseau as well as a few rogue genes from Maxwell Smart and Austin Powers -- in "OSS 117: Cairo Nest of Spies."In this witty send-up of '60s spy films, our supremely suave hero, Hubert Bonisseur de la Bath (Jean Dujardin), is summoned by the French secret service to replace fellow agent Jack Jefferson (Philippe Lefebvre), recently murdered in Cairo. Hubert will pose as head of a poultry firm there -- his cover on the assignment to investigate Jack's death, resolve the Suez Crisis, monitor the Soviets, foil a coup plot by King Farouk's relatives, quell a Muslim religious rebellion and bring peace to the Middle East."No problem," says Hubert, who is nothing if not self-confident.At the Cairo airport, Hubert is met by sexy collaborator Larmina (Berenice Bejo). On the fabulously fake rear-projection car ride into town, he marvels at the large amount of sand in Egypt and, on seeing the Suez Canal, admires the pharaohs' foresight in building it 4,000 years ago.How phenomenally ignorant of the culture is Hubert? Next day, awakened at his hotel by the early-morning prayer call, he angrily stomps over to the local minaret to grab the muezzin's mike and put a stop to it. When Larmina takes him to the obligatory embassy reception, he is delighted by "the perfect occasion to wear my alpaca tuxedo." Once there, he offers her a drink. She says no, it's against her religion. "What stupid religion would forbid alcohol?" he asks.I'm surprised these guys -- actor Dujardin, writer Jean-Francois Halin and director Michel Hazanavicius -- haven't gotten the Salman Rushdie- or Danish-cartoonist-treatment for this film, which is derived very loosely from the novels of Jean Bruce (France's Ian Fleming). It has all the right 007 moves and production values: the agent's irresistibility to women, the one-on-one combat (why do the bad guys always toss the knife back and forth between their hands?), the double-triple-quadruple-cross finale, the deliciously heavy-handed retro score, even the credits -- all a perfect replication of the '60s spy flick.It also features a daring camel-back escape from the pyramids ("We have an hour's hump ahead," Hubert tells Larmina) and an epic chicken-coup battle, with the chickens themselves as weapon of choice. Funniest running gag is a series of idyllic flashbacks to Hubert and Jack, laughing and cavorting on the beach "in happier times." Were they, perhaps, more than just friends?Dujardin looks astoundingly like the young Sean Connery of the "Dr. No" period -- not one jet-black shellacked hair ever out of place. He's hugely entertaining, while Bejo is a fine foxy foil. This fond lampoon, full of Franco-centric arrogance, spoofs not just the genre but the whole idea of Western neo-colonialist covert action in Arab countries.There's not a drop of blood in it, but if no chickens were harmed in the making of this film, I'll eat my hat along with my buffalo wings.In French with subtitles.Rating: PG-13 in nature for comic violence and subtitles.(Pittsburgh Post-Gazette film critic Barry Paris can be reached at parispg48(at)aol.com.)(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
'OSS 117' a clever spoof of '60s spy flicks
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